The movement opposing Google’s $125-million deal for the rights to digitise millions of books has gained even more momentum, after Amazon called the agreement “dangerous”.
The internet retailer, which has its own project to scan in books, said in an American court filing that Google’s deal with US publishers and authors represented a dangerous precedent that could damage innovation and hinder copyright law.
“The proposed settlement usurps the role of Congress in legislating solutions to the complex issues raised by the interplay between new technologies and the nation’s copyright laws,” the company said in a 41-page document lodged with a US federal court in New York.
The controversy surrounds the proposed settlement between Google and the Association of American Publishers and the Authors’ Guild — the terms of which would see Google get the rights to digitise millions of books still under copyright in exchange for $125-million and a share of the proceeds.
The agreement would also see the creation of a new organisation in the US called the Book Rights Registry, which would have responsibility for tracking down authors and some control over pricing. Opponents have said the could create a cartel, and that the settlement is illegal because it potentially gives away the rights of thousands of authors who are not represented by the parties involved.
Amazon called the situation a potential “cartel structure that leaves the public susceptible to abuses”.
“The problem with the proposed settlement from an antitrust perspective is that it rushes to create this cartel while avoiding all restrictions that would cage its power to prevent harm to the public interest,” it said. “The proposed settlement creates a pricing mechanism that is fraught with the dangers associated with price-fixing.”
The Seattle-based company is already a member of the Open Book Alliance — a group of companies and organisations opposed to the deal — but its comments are the strongest message yet that Google’s rivals and others will do their best to block the agreement.
Peter Brantley, who is the head of the Open Book Alliance, told the Guardian last week that it was important for the future of the publishing world for action to be taken now.
“We think that digitising analogue material and making it available for search is an important ability for gaining access to information that might otherwise be locked up,” he said. “But the settlement is a very different creature from the application Google had originally created.”
As well as the alliance, others who have voiced their opposition include the families of famous authors and artists such as Arlo Guthrie and John Steinbeck.
“It would be a shame to have to go back to Congress and/or the courts in a few years to ask them to split up a monopoly when we have the chance to stop it in its tracks right now,” said Gail Steinbeck, the daughter-in-law of the writer, earlier this year.
Google has said that it does not believe the settlement represents an exclusive deal that violates competition law, and said that many groups opposing the deal are merely jealous competitors.
“The Google books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it’s understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition,” Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker said in a statement.
But Amazon’s attack is just the latest in a series of official positions against the settlement, with a deadline this Friday for submissions to the New York judge who is overseeing the case.
Microsoft and Yahoo! are expected to file their own protests before the end of the week, while the German government has filed its own objection to the settlement. — guardian.co.uk